On November 21, US Eastern Time, Canaan Technology (hereinafter referred to as Canaan) was successfully listed on NASDAQ under the stock code "CAN". The IPO issue price was finally locked at $9 per share, and a total of $90 million was raised.
According to the prospectus, Jianan’s total revenue in 2018 was 2.7053 billion yuan, an increase of 106.8% from 1.3081 billion yuan in 2017. As of the first nine months of this year, Canaan's total revenue was 950 million. Among them, the company's total revenue in the third quarter of this year has more than doubled compared with the first half of the year.
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China's first AI chip with independent intellectual property rights
According to the prospectus, Canaan has years of technology accumulation in the ASIC field and is the second largest bitcoin mining machine manufacturer in the world. In 2016, Canaan officially launched the research and development of AI chips, and released the first-generation AI chip Kanzhi K210 in September 2018. Since then, Canaan has become the first company in the world to master the independent intellectual property rights of RISC-V architecture commercial edge AI chips.
According to public information, Kanzhi K210 has three characteristics of integrated audio-visual design, independent IP and programmable capabilities. Among them, the core network accelerator KPU of Kanzhi series chips is completely based on self-developed, which can not only accelerate the reasoning of CNN, but also accelerate the convolution-based operators of traditional image algorithms. At the same time, KPU supports algorithm models such as TinyYOLOv2, which can provide an exploration platform for cutting-edge technology directions such as TinyML.
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AI Commercialization Accelerates
The commercialization of Canaan's AI chip was officially launched in March this year. As of September 30, 2019, Canaan has delivered more than 53,000 chips and development modules to AI product developers, and its shipments have doubled within three months. At the same time, Canaan has cooperated with more than 30 AI algorithm companies to develop overall AI solutions for end consumers.
Canaan provides customers with overall AI solutions from chips, development modules, products to SaaS services. Currently, Kanzhi K210 has been deployed and applied in smart buildings, smart homes, smart energy consumption, and smart agriculture and forestry.
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SaaS platforms create revenue streams for AI services
According to the prospectus, Canaan is using AI chips as the core hardware to create an AI SaaS platform to provide end customers with integrated artificial intelligence services integrating hardware, algorithms and software, creating a complete and open ecosystem. According to the needs of different IoT scenarios, the AI SaaS platform can provide AI terminal customers with an optimized combination of AI chip models, algorithms, custom software, and user interfaces.
For example, in order to promote the application of smart door locks, Canaan combines low-cost, high-performance AI SoCs with different algorithms and provides conditional access services, customers do not have to worry about the underlying infrastructure. Canaan charges customers by the number of monthly entries, rather than a one-time purchase of hardware.
Through the AI SaaS platform, Canaan also hopes to provide data analysis for a long time. The implementation of this strategy will simplify the development process of AI solutions, ensure a better experience for end customers, and create a stable revenue stream for the SaaS services it provides in the future.
According to the prospectus, Canaan is currently developing a second-generation 28nm AI chip. Compared with the previous generation of products, the new chip is developed for 5G scenarios, and has greatly improved computing power and energy efficiency. It will be used for the exploration of new scenarios such as smart retail and smart driving. Mass production of the second-generation chips is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2020. In addition, the company also plans to launch a third-generation 12nm AI chip in the second half of 2020, which is expected to be suitable for edge and cloud computing.
